Bush: Agency Merger Would Save Millions

"Gov. Jeb Bush's proposed merger of the Department of State and Department of Community Affairs would cut 218 positions and save the state $20.7 million, Bush said Tuesday....

In addition, some programs will be transferred to other state agencies, and one - the Florida State Library - would be eliminated....

'This is an effort to bring together like programs,' said Department of Community Affairs spokeswoman Alia Faraj. 'This will be not so much telling communities what to do as providing them with the assistance they need to do what they need to do....'

Some services proposed for transfer in the merger:

• Custodian of State Records, Records Management and Archives to the Department of Management Services.
• Florida State Library collections to Florida State University. The division of state libraries would be eliminated.

Spokeswomen for both libraries and environmental protection worry that consumer access to both government records and government regulators is going to be hurt by the merger." [Tallahassee Democrat, via librarian.net]

This may not be "telling communities what to do," but it sure will limit the support network for community libraries, which will mean additional cuts, reductions in resources, and a smaller world for each community. This is taking away assistance, not providing it. If you live in Florida, you need to contact your legislators and Governor Bush and tell them that Florida can't afford to be without a state library.

The Most Challenged Books of 2002

"Harry Potter series tops list of most challenged books four years in a row.... The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 515 reports of challenges last year, a 15 percent increase since 2001....

The 'Ten Most Challenged Books of 2002' reflect a wide variety of themes. The books, in order of most frequently challenged are:

• Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, for its focus on wizardry and magic.
• Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, for being sexually explicit, using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.
• "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier (the "Most Challenged" book of 1998), for using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.
• "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, for sexual content, racism, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group.
• "Taming the Star Runner" by S.E. Hinton, for offensive language.
• "Captain Underpants" by Dav Pilkey, for insensitivity and being unsuited to age group, as well as encouraging children to disobey authority.
• "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, for racism, insensitivity and offensive language.
• "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson, for offensive language, sexual content and Occult/Satanism.
• "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor, for insensitivity, racism and offensive language.
• "Julie of the Wolves" by Julie Craighead George, for sexual content, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group." [ALA, via The ResourceShelf

"Since the RIAA attacked Napster and its ilk, a number of individuals (Joey Harrison of Toledo), organizations, and public figures have drawn a comparison between peer-to-peer file sharing and libraries." [Memepool]

The only links the author missed are "We have a very serious issue with librarians" and "A Nest of Pirates." And you wondered why the U.S. government, sponsored by the media industry, is after library patron records?...  ;-)

Check out this great blog I just came across in my referers, Women in Information Technology: An  annotated list of sites about and for women in the fields of library & information science, information technology, and computer science. Whew - try saying that five times fast. And there's an RSS feed!

"This site is a collection of organizations, resources, and cool links relating to, well, women and information technology. Originally founded by Jerry McDonough at the School of Information Management & Systems, the site has morphed somewhat over the years but has tried to stay true to Jerry's original vision.

And after eons of neglect, the new womeninit.net site rises from the ruins thanks to Movable Type. I plan to update it frequently this time, really!"

Argh! Again I find out from an online site about something a couple of my SLS libraries are doing. Both Midlothian Public Library and Thomas Ford Memorial Library are participating in Library Book Sales.

"LibraryBookSales.org matches you with rare, collectible and quality books that have been donated to public libraries. The money you spend goes directly to the library that sells you the book. You benefit because you can find quality books at great prices. Everyone Wins!...

Librarybooksales.org (and .com) has become one of the hottest spots on the web. New libraries are joining every day, and books are being uploaded as we speak. The project is open to any library. Public, private, institutional, special collections, educational, foreign or domestic. The goal is for libraries to generate much needed funds to continue serving the 'better good.'

The project is not open to commercial book sellers. These libraries can now sell their better books on the web. These may be books that have been donated to the library, duplicate copies, monographs or surplus materials...." [via TeleRead]

Has Google Won? A Librarian Says Students Have More Data Than They Know What to Do With

"Like many other librarians, Steven J. Bell has watched students go to online databases, enter a few search terms, and get hundreds of articles in return. Swamped with information, and doubtless on a deadline, these students print out the first several articles -- making no effort to evaluate their quality -- and then run off to write their papers. Now Mr. Bell, library director at Philadelphia University, asks a question that might seem heretical for someone in his field: Is more information always better?

Mr. Bell, who poses that question in an article in this month's issue of American Libraries, the American Library Association's magazine, discussed his concerns in an interview with The Chronicle....

"There was a very interesting article recently in College & Research Libraries News ["Facing the Competition," December 2002] that basically said, We're giving up on information literacy because we can't reach the students anymore, and we're just hoping to come up with ways that they can search our Web site to come up with some information that will help them. That, to me, is throwing up the white flag and saying, Google has won. I think if we keep working with the people who create the databases, maybe we can come up with a product that has a better balance. ... There are loads of techniques that could improve searching, and they've got to be built into the systems better....

One thing that concerns me is that a lot of the services have a check box that says "full text." You click that, and you are eliminating what could be some very good articles that are available only in citation or abstract format. ... In the article, I call it "full-text fixation." We're creating a generation of researchers and scholars who are losing touch completely with the value of getting a citation that is on target for the topic, then walking to the shelf to find a hard copy or finding it in another database....

How we communicate that to the public and to our users -- that's becoming really important. I could bring you into the library and watch students do research. I could know that they are struggling, and go over and say, Do you need help? But they say, No, I'm fine. The mind-set is that all the information is out there, and that they just need to plug in a few words to find it." [The Chronicle, via WEB4LIB mailing list]